Devour
by headphone frenzy
Summary: Roxas never imagined that everything in his life would lead up to this, but for the first time ever, he knew where he was going. Akuroku. Soriku. AU.


.Devour

Headphone does not own.

**Chapter 1. Prologues to get wound up in.**

The way that Roxas viewed himself was far more superior then what the norm had decided was decent. In his prime age of 8, the boy thought that anything he wanted he would get, and without any thought to it, he believed whole-heartedly that if he wanted a fucking _catapult_ in his front yard shooting hunks of frozen pizza at the U.S. Navy, he would get exactly that. However, his parents would just listen to his wants, get him a set of those things that were no larger then 2x3 inches, and tell him to run along and play outside.

Sadly, this process of thought was so instilled into his brain that he never understood the meaning of the word 'no' and he remembered so many glares and these words that stuck in his brain like a bear to a jar of fresh honey. 'Greedy' was what he heard, 'Stubborn' was what he remembered, but no matter how many times he asked the adults to explain themselves, all they would say is 'this is grown-up talk, go play out front'. Needless to say Roxas was never too much of a happy-camper in his youth. He remembered all this talk about 'Be grateful' and 'be more responsible' and 'By god you're almost 9 get out of bed before I ask your father to get the belt'.

He never understood it all, he never tried to understand it, he would always just do whatever and waste his time laughing at his neighbor's dog, Kiwi, and trying whatever he could to avoid the terrible thing known as 'School' or 'Educational Work' or any other word the parents he lived with would use to try and trick him into becoming a brain-washed school-zombie. Though, aside his struggles, they would always succeed in strapping him down in a desk, giving him the assignments required by the school that he finish, and then handing it in with B-quality work on it.

"Work harder!" The mother would yell.

"I know you have more potential." The father would scold.

It was like this disgusting cycle, and there was never an end. The spoilt Roxas would always sit, his 4th-grade math homework staring him straight in the eyes, the multiples of two, and the assessments of language he never cared about. He was always home schooled because his parents couldn't control his motor-mouth during 1st grade, and after that, he was distanced from the earth and he _still_couldn't understand. 'Why would my Mom and Dad try to make me friendless?' 'Do they like seeing me lonely?' 'Why can't I just go to school?' Then Roxas couldn't help but remember the horrors of school shown in T.V. Shows and Cartoons that he was slightly scared and rephrased his last question quickly and without thought.

And after that, Roxas remembered this one year that he tried to convince his mother to not let him go to school, after all, why would he need to if he just took over the family-business? But, instead of saying 'Of course, Son, why couldn't I have thought of that before?' she set him down with a nice slip of paper that said 'Roxas is failing and should see a tutor for extra educational aid.'

Roxas didn't understand half of the words, and he couldn't see that he wasn't going to get what he wanted.

"What does this have to do with me?" He asked simply, trying an innocent look to see if his mother took less of a hand to him.

"It means that you are failing at least one of your classes, and I'm thinking that keeping you ignorant of your classmates is a bad idea, seeing as how the Nanny can't seem to keep up with you." At this little hitch in her throat, Roxas seemed to vaguely notice how tired his mother looked, her blonde hair falling out of the pony-tail and the strands that lay flat in her face, caressing her cheeks like small hands. She sat in the living room, a thick chapter-book with a dark cover lay in her still lap and a small lamp, with fanciful designs covering the lamp-shade with a price on it that was more then a minimum workers salary for three weeks, next to her that lit up just enough space for her to have a comfortable reading period.

Roxas didn't understand the word 'Ignorant' and tried to pretend it meant just about anything, but he tried to pretend that it meant something that was at least mildly good, or at least decent.

"And this means…?" Voice unsteady, water filling it in a light glaze of salt and mist, he was sure that he looked pathetic right now, and he couldn't find himself to 'man-up' like his old man had told him to do whenever he tried to pout a lip.

"We're sending you to an actual school next year." His mothers voice was soothing, like warm-milk or something that a kitten would be drawn to, and the thought of a kitten itself drew away Roxas's mind, but less then a second later his wandering mind came back to face reality.

"Next year?" His eyes were wide with bemuse, and he couldn't believe what he was hearing. He would be in the same room with real desks, a real teacher who didn't rummage their fridge half the time and then complain when they didn't have this, that, or the next thing that was apparently so important to her teaching the young innocent boy who was such an ignoramus.

"Yes, you'll start fifth grade in an actual school." His mother cupped his cheeks; acting as though she were leaving him to go somewhere far, and all that Roxas did was try to deceiver the proud look in her eyes. The entire situation was so utterly confusing to the boy, and he couldn't have understood half of it even if his entire life of 9 and a half year depended on it.

"Will Nanny be there?" The young boy asked, his voice sounding uncertain, if even a bit scared. There wasn't an ounce of particular like for the grouchy old maid, and he couldn't help but slide out a breath of relief when his mother answered that after this year, he wouldn't have to so much as talk to her ever again if he so pleased. This fact pleased Roxas more then it should have, but he always loved how his mother bent to his wishes more then his father would in a million years. It was as though his father's back had gone stiff after bending to his mother's wish to have Roxas.

"You know what, Mom?"

"What is it, Roxy?" There was a stifle of a chuckle in his mother's throat, almost stuck with all of the filth and dealings that she had stuck in there. She was calmer know then when she had started the conversation, since she wasn't sure how Roxas would reply to having to not see Nanny ever again, since she wasn't sure wither or not her son even liked the Home-Tutor or not.

"I think I love you more then Dad." There was a hint of silence, and then a quick puff of dead air coming out of the young boy's lungs in a fit of confusion and possible frustration at his father's inability to be this understanding and loving.

"Oh, dear, he's gonna be jealous." Roxas could hear the coo in her voice, saying, almost yelling in sarcastic tones 'I'm telling, I'm telling!'

"I still love him a whole bunch though, but I love you a bit more." There was nothing telling why exactly why Roxas said this, but he was sure that his mother was tired by the way she hadn't scooped him up and held him close in the silky arm-chair she had rested upon.

Then, the days went by quickly, and Roxas tried slightly harder to learn, and his Mother had told the Tutor to start looking for a job, since it would probably take the 4 months left of the school-year to find a decent-paying job. The greedy youth had turned 8 in early December, and he had received around 6 dozens gifts that he would easily forget about in the next year's time.

After that, the days flew by like every day just started with the same waking 3 days prior, and after enough times of getting up, doing work, playing with the Nanny until he realized the lady was a dead-beat and couldn't keep up with him, talking to his mother and going back to sleep. And within all of those sequences he would eat typical rich-people food, speak in tongues that he didn't know were offensive, use the bathroom more then four times in the same hour, and take small breathers when he would continuously complain about 'nasty' hand-cramps he had developed through his never-ending school-work and how the old Nanny was giving him a terrible ache by gazing over his tiny shoulder so many times in one day.

"Roxas is becoming lazy." The Nanny would say far-too-loudly to the impatient boy's mother, hoping she would do something about her son's over-dramatic attitude and dislike for his duties. They would hold these little parent-teacher meetings in the kitchen when they had thought that Roxas had already gone upstairs to play with whatever he was planning on playing with that day and waiting for his mother to go up there to join him in his games.

"Has he been doing anything in particular?" Her voice was sharp yet concerned, like any mother's voice was whenever her only son was being discussed in the sense of academics and grades.

"Aside from nothing, no not really." She woman's attitude could have taken a few notches back from 'Bitch-ville' but the mother knew that she would never see Roxas as anything more then just a way to pay her bills without any worry.

"Well, just try to work with him a little and see if…"

"The boy won't sit still long enough for me to talk to him. He's so impatient and he can't even stand to listen to me teaching a lecture before he tries to run out."

"Well, I'm not sure what to do here."

"Does he have anyone he can talk to? Because it seems to me that he's got pent up emotions and he wants to talk to someone his own age."

"Well, we were gonna main-stream him next year…"

"What about this year? I'm sorry, Naminé, but you need to do something or else he's going to end up further away in la-la-land."

"What do you suggest we do? Adopt him a brother or something?"

"…Y'know, that wouldn't be such a bad idea, though get him a boy right around his age."

"I'll ask Ansem what he thinks about adoption."

"I think that would be best."

Roxas had seen the entire scene from the other side of the open kitchen door and he couldn't help but feel excited at the thought of him getting a brother, one his own age, even! The simple thought of it completely escaped his small unimaginative brain, and he couldn't help but feel a bit sad at the same time that all of his mother's love wouldn't be entirely on the greedy blonde. However, those thoughts didn't linger too long, and sooner-then-not he was already trying to think of what type of brother he would want, wither or not he would want one that was as stylish as himself, or one that was lesser so that he would be able to build his brother up to being just like he was, calm and controlled.

There wasn't any more talk about this possible brother of Roxas's for a few days, and his excitement was obvious in the way he would wake up and quickly finish his work to see if his mother had any news for him, and eventually she would just shake her head slowly and take a couple sips of her coffee. She seemed in a daze, almost like she was excited but was trying to contain herself and ended up going overboard and just shutting herself off. Roxas, however, didn't truly understand this and thought that his father had said no to the idea, but he figured that eventually they would ask the youth at hand if he wanted a brother.

This night did eventually come, and Roxas was never more prepared to answer anything.

The question was very simple and straightforward:

"How would you feel if we got you a brother, your age, for you to play with?"

And Roxas's answer was just as simple and straightforward as he would ever be with just about anything:

"I would love that."

And the seal was set just as soon as his words were said, and the brother Roxas had never knew that he had was ordered as quickly as it was asked for.

They got him a brother two weeks later, and Roxas's was never happier now that he had his slightly younger brother, Sora stuck to his side like glue to a kindergartener's mouth and hands. The boy was quiet, calm and collected, yet at the same time, he was able to express himself clearer when he had any sort of emotion that Roxas seemed incapable of truly feeling, such as love, happiness, or even completeness. There was a little hint of jealousy that wormed its way into the blonde's mind, but he toughed it in every sense, and tried to show off how he was able to be all that much cooler then Sora was.

"You're really silly Roxy." Sora would say in the middle of his laughing fits after having a round of ninja-battles in their luscious backyard, trying to pull and prod at each other without any actual pain being inflicted on either's person. The entire game was simple fun, and neither of them had a single thought of dislike in their brains to try to play against the rules, which were two simple statements of 'No pain' and 'Don't break anything'.

"You're just jealous, SO-raaa." Roxas taunted, trying to make it sound like the brunettes name was supposed to be some sort of childish insult that the two of them only knew the meaning to.

Everything was so simple and tactless back then when they were still growing up and growing older that it seemed like nothing would happen to them, and that the thing the grown-ups called 'Growing up' would never show up on their doorstep, and that even if they tried, they would forever stay in this blissful cycle of nothing. Though, something small told them to stop being so full of themselves, and that thing was known as 'mother' and 'father' and 'the mailman who seems to witness everything even though he technically can't do anything'.

However, the moment Nanny left, and Roxas was forced into the main cycle of school, he was sure to come up with this idea that spoke in profuse tones of 'I hate this so much, can I please never talk to anyone ever again?' And part of Roxas still wishes to chuck frozen pizzas at the U.S. Navy from a gigantic catapult that he would keep in his front yard to show off to his neighbors, especially the one with the funny looking dog that he thought was a nothing more then a giant pile of fluff on stubby legs that barked and yipped loudly and proudly from the other side of the lazy fence.

"Roxas?"

"What?"

"Will you protect me?"

"Forever."

Sora couldn't help but feel this promise was childish.

Roxas couldn't help but feel this promise would last.

( )

Three years later and the way that Sora viewed life was almost the entire opposite of what it was when he had started living with his newest family. If anything, he didn't particularly like the way he was being treated like he was the younger brother, even though he was in this particular situation, but he hated having to be the younger brother of a boy who was the most ill-mannered uninformed _thing_Sora swore even dared to walk the earth.

If anything, the brunette orphan wanted to cuff Roxas upside the head more then he didn't because Roxas took everything for granted. Because it was up to Roxas if he was to get whatever he wanted, not his parent's or their wallets that Sora assumed were being drained by his ignorant 'brother's complaints and wants and needs. And Sora thought and thought and came up with the one thing that Roxas was never taught to turn him into such an arrogant and spoiled brat, and that was the inability to be told 'no' to.

This little fact, however, Roxas's mother had realized so many years before, and she almost cursed her husband's expansive salary on, since she was so scared that her little boy was going to grow up with that inability and end up doing something that was so terrible and humiliating to some random girl at a party all because she was a bad mother and never pushed the word enough. Though, there was another part of her that says that it wasn't her fault she her son refused to accept the simple to letter word with such a large detest.

"Can I…?" And the blonde would end it with something stupid like setting off fire-crackers or going down to the park to video-tape a ninja-battle between the local punks, Squall and Seifer.

"No."

"Why?" Eyes becoming blurry, salt pooling up in small dew drops, with some small tears sprinting down Roxas's cheeks as though they were Kenyans in the marathon portion of the Olympics.

"Because, It's dangerous." Would be the all-purpose answer from either of the two parental figures, and it would be quickly followed by Roxas's stomping out of the room grumbling about how if it was _Sora_ they'd be okay with it.

And then Roxas would push and push, and by the time he was used to public schools, and he had a little group of friends by the name of Hayner, Pence, and Olette, he stopped even attempting to listen to his mother. Sora hated this part of his brother, and tried his hardest to try and make Roxas understand that the world didn't revolve around him, and that he wasn't the biggest thing since soap and pelicans, but the blonde was so full of himself by that point he may as well as been the sun and moon itself, since that's about how inflated his ego had gotten by this point in his life.

After all, if the world wasn't starting and ending to Roxas's beautiful face, and staring at it at every waking moment of every single day, then the world obviously didn't exist at all. Or at least, that's what the brunette viewed his brother's thoughts as being, since they had grown apart so much after the first year of the humble orphan living with the wealthy family in their mighty abode.

And Sora, smart Sora, talented Sora, everything-Roxas-couldn't-be Sora, after he had became about 12 years of age, had gotten an invite to go to a private school that was near-by, and Roxas had gotten so jealous. The greedy youth whined and complained, and he couldn't see that it wasn't his fault he didn't excel in anything aside from whining and theatre, but by this point in his life, he stopped even trying to fake being pleasant towards his family. Since Roxas imagined that they obviously were tired of him, because why else would they have gotten such a smart and talented brother for Roxas?

"It's not fair!" Roxas cried at his mother, who was trying so hard at this point to just contain the boy and his adolescent fury, which everyone could tell was just a branch-off of jealousy and resentment.

"What's not fair?" His father would ask, coming in at the wrong time of the argument.

"Sora gets to go to this fancy private school!"

"Oh, does he now?" There was curiosity laced in his father's tone of voice, and his arms folded together like he was truly inquisitive about this whole situation that seem straightforward and easy to understand to anyone by Roxas.

"It's free." His mother stated, glad that they wouldn't have to pay any extra fees to get her second son the schooling that he had earned through hard-work, hours spent actually doing his homework instead of lying and actually just goofing around with his friends like what Roxas did almost every day ever since 6th grade started. This little fact, however, Roxas preferred to stay ignorant about, since it was obviously not hanging out with his friends that lowered his grades to a staggering 75.

"It's not fair."

"How is it not fair, Roxy?" His mother was the only one who still used that nickname for Roxas, and the childish coo of her voice now sent disgusted chills down the spoiled blonde's slightly straight back.

"It just is! I mean, why can't _I _go to a fancy school like that?"

"Because you're grades aren't even high enough for you to be accepted, and even if they were, you would be kicked out within the first week." Sora was standing at the doorway to the kitchen, where he had been listening to well over half of the argument without a single word. Though, obviously Roxas was ignorant of this fact like he was of everything else, and was slightly shocked to see the brunette standing there when he thought he was still taking a shower. The words that the orphan spoke were quick and flawless, like he had been planning to say them forever, and now he spat them up like a river, and Roxas flinched after they reached him, as though the words themselves was the callous venom of a deep bee sting.

"Oh _ha ha_. And I think that you think this is funny?" Roxas's tone was shrewd, vulgar, yet at the same time you could hear the fact that he felt threatened by Sora's composure and his quick words.

"I dunno; depends on how upset you get." A small smirk settled itself on the younger brother's lips, and he couldn't help but fold his arms with the satisfaction of getting Roxas so upset at something so very simple and stupid.

"God_damnit_!" He cried with as much venom in his voice as he could manage, coming up to Sora with a clenched fist and before the targeted boy could even register the vile word that came out of his brothers mouth there was said fist coming up to say a painful hello to his nose, twisting it quickly with a small crack and a bellowing scream. No one registered this quick enough, and Roxas was left to puff in anger above his younger sibling before realizing 'The kid I promised to protect was the first person I've ever socked'.

Then, the parents realized what happened, if only five seconds later, but to Sora, the pain and agony went on for hours, and they couldn't have taken their time any longer then injured boy thought they did. Roxas ran out the front door as soon as his worried Mother and Father had gotten up, and Roxas swore later on that if he could have ran any faster then he did, his legs would have most likely fallen off with the force.

There was some kind of realization at this point, and it was that Roxas was suddenly different, that the 9 year old that had promised to protect Sora with every ounce of his body was now dead, and now there was this terrible monster that existed that wanted nothing more then to make his brother go away so that he wouldn't have to see the fact that he wasn't always right, and that he wasn't the most talented, or funniest, or whatever. But this fact bothered him more then anything, and Roxas wanted nothing more then to prove that he was better then his stupid brother in some sense, but no matter how much he searched within himself, he couldn't find anything.

Though, when Roxas had to apologize to Sora in the emergency room when they found out he had a broken nose and almost choked on his own blood, it felt like he was apologizing to the fuller part of himself, and somehow it made the blonde feel like some sort of nutcase.

"I'm…sorry, Sora."

"It's okay. I still love you, Rox." No one was allowed to call Roxas 'Rox' except for Sora, and the currently unstable blonde refused to answer to that name by anyone else but the smiling brunette.

"Why in the world would you even talk to me when I broken your friggin nose?"

"Because I guess I needed to get a broken nose to see when I was being a dick." Sora shrugged, his nonchalant attitude being found appropriate even though it was far more composed then even Roxas's erratic breathing. And while the two siblings had the small moment to bond even further then they already had, all they did was stare at opposite walls and wait patiently for the overwrought silence to be shattered by someone else.

"Language, boys. Also, Roxas, we're going to have a talk about what you said earlier." Was the only this their father had said to them the entire time they were in that crowded doctor's office, and the two boys couldn't help but chuckle immaturely at the fact that Roxas had even said what he did with his parents around, seeing that the blonde never could bring himself to be a big fan of swearing.

And while both of them had made up, and the two brothers were now closer then they had been in the past year, there was this fear that Roxas could see in his blue eyes, this pastel mineral that sent shivers down his spine.

"Hey Rox?"

"What's up?"

"Will you still protect me?"

"…Yeah."

Sora had never sounded more intimidated than he did at that one moment.

Roxas couldn't help but feel like a part of him had just died at that one moment.


End file.
